Painting the Engine Bay - 04/04/2010
Took Thursday off for a 4 day weekend to try and wrap up my engine bay paint job.
As mentioned earlier, I've been working on notching the firewall so I'll have the option of upgrading to a fast intake later without messing up my pretty paint. You can see it in later pics but I also hit it with some high build primer. Smoothed out very well.
I finished the work on the notch on Thursday. Then I finished my front wiring harness on Friday! WOOHOO! I don't have pictures, but I'll post them soon. I haven't re-wrapped it yet, because I want to test everything on the car, but after triple checking everything I'm pretty sure I have it the way I want it. It's not the fanciest delete / rewire, but it works for me.
Things I deleted:
X11
X12
X-9
X-5
B1-01 - ECU Plugs
D1-02 - Washer Motor
B1-09 – Igniter
B1-10 – Condenser
B1-05 - Fuel Pump Resistor
B2-01, B2-02, B2-03, B2-04, B2-05, and B2,06 - Basically the entire stock fan relay system :D
As you can see, I didn't delete the relay box. I opted to keep it since personally I think the fan relays just hanging out in the engine bay are waay uglier + the Samburg radiator does a good job of hiding the relay box :)
Some things I rewired:
1. The 30A fused Radio relay now controls the Taurus fan level 1 (actuated by a the LS1 PCM grounding the relay coil)
2. The Circuit Opening relay and the Fuel pump relay are fused through the 60A Cooling Fan Fuse and power the Taurus fan level 2 in parallel (actuated by a the LS1 PCM grounding the relay coils).
3. The Air Pump Relay takes a GND AC request from the HVAC control and turns it into a 12v signal for the LS1 PCM
4. The AC Relay takes a GND signal from the LS1 PCM and provides 12v to the AC solenoid.
5. All the control wires for the above modifications were routed to the passenger kick panel side of the harness
I think that's pretty much it. The harness slimmed down a little bit and I depinned the connectors that lost wires. I think it will look much cleaner installed. It will certainly be easier to wire the LS1 ECU as most of what it needs is now in the passenger kick panel :)
On Friday I finished prepping my engine bay for paint, built a makeshift paint booth, and masked 90% of the bay.
What I learned about spraying POR15:
1. Plan to have more light at your disposal than you think you need
2. Get the best goggles you can afford - The $2 splash gaurd "goggles" at lowes didn't cut it. Even though the have an egonomic look, they aren't airtight and POR15 fumes are serious! Serious enough that even though I couldn't 'smell' the fumes, my eyes 'felt' them :(
3. GET THE BEST GOGGLES YOU CAN AFFORD! - If you are shooting in the southeast, it's humid, and your mask will fog. I had some drips in my paint because I couldn't see the wet edge of the paint (my fault for continuing). Fixed it with a $12 pair that sealed to my face and was thermal.
4. POR15 solvent burns! Get some overspray on your ankle, just wipe it off with some POR15 solvent right? Wrong! Funny thing is, their solvent is greasy and I had to use Acetone get it all off and stop the burning. I know... I'm stupid :D
Overall, it was a good learning experience. Now I feel better about buying a better spray gun because I think my confidence is high enough that I'll actually use it.
Next week I'm going to try and paint my subframe parts.